It is well known and recognized today that the practice of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing over a wide-area network, such as the Internet, is one of the most popular and rapidly expanding practices in history. This practice, which grows dramatically even as we now speak about it, is readily accessible and practicable, utilizing any one of a relatively widely available array of available P2P file-sharing intercommunication technologies, by essentially all in the world who have computer access to the Internet.
Unfortunately, and we believe mistakenly, P2P file sharing has, in the last few years, come to be viewed by some as an enemy of certain commerce—particularly commerce involving electronically distributable media content, such as music and movie files. In this “enemy” mode of thinking, the various conflicts which have arisen between P2P file sharers, providers of communication software/technology which enables P2P file sharing, and copyright rights holders associated with such electronic media content, have centered around the issue of apparent massive copyright infringement in the form of file acquisitions and use without payments to rights holders. These conflicts have unhappily pitted certain among these parties against one another as hostile legal combatants.
Notwithstanding this landscape of “copyright contention”, the present invention, in its proposed unique methodology and systemic approach to the world of P2P file sharing, recognizes and proposes a paradigm shift based upon a recognition that the extraordinary and massive communication bandwidth which is represented by the world of P2P file sharing can, in fact, be tapped creatively, along with the affinity interests of P2P file sharers, as vehicles and growth engines for the promotion, expansion and impressive enlarging of many forms of commerce, including commerce relating to electronically distributable media per se.
By proposing a significant change in the thinking about how P2P file sharing, and associated software and communication technologies, can be constructively employed, one can be brought to recognize that P2P file sharing offers an unparalleled and historically monumental opportunity for the expansion of commerce in many, if not all, forms of goods and services under the dominion of parties outside of the P2P network world. It can do this quite simply through harnessing the unique and specialized behaviors and the enthusiasms of P2P electronic-media file sharers, in a kind of piggyback fashion, to link with the communication traffic most affectionately focused upon by P2P affinity-group file sharers specially permitted, managed and controlled offers of sales for various goods and services. Such goods and services may reside (a) only in the field of electronic media (such as music song files), (b) only in ancillary fields which are outside the electronic media field, and or (c) in a blend of these two fields. Accordingly, it should be understood that references made herein to a catalogue of deliverables are intended to convey the understanding that such deliverables may “sit” in any one of these single or blended “fields”.
For example, and as an important illustration for describing the present invention, a very good and representative P2P affinity group might be a group of such file sharers who have a special interest in a particular style, or genre, of music. There are, of course, many other relevant examples of affinity groups, and practice of the present invention is not constrained just to a “music genre” group. Put another way, implementation and practice of the present invention offers special opportunities for significant expansion of commerce, in addition to electronic media commerce, through what are referred to herein as collateral income-generating transactions, in the contexts of many different affinity-group interests covering a very wide range of subject matters. The term “collateral” is intended to refer to transactions which are other than conventional, basic file-sharing transactions. The term refers generally to what might be thought of as being “heightened” file-share transactions involving peer-to-peer entrepreneurial activity, as will be explained. A collateral transaction, for example, might be the acquisition by one peer of a music song file, paid for by that peer to the copyright rights holder associated with that file, where the acquisition results from a peer-to-peer entrepreneurial promotion. A collateral transaction might also be a peer-to-peer-promoted acquisition of some other kind of deliverable, including a peer-specific deliverable, which is not a music, or other electronic, file, and which takes place in the context of an affinity file-share event. Other kinds of collateral transactions, within the imaginations of those implementing the present invention, may of course be accommodated.
Specific illustration of the present invention in the world of distributable electronic media is selected herein because of the extraordinary nature today of P2P file sharing of electronic media, and because of the potentially diffusible combative relationships which have surfaced as a consequence of P2P electronic media file sharing. As one will see from a reading of the description of the present invention along with the accompanying, illustrative block/schematic diagrams, practice of the present invention offers a clear opportunity for electronic media rights holders, such as copyright owners, to recognize a very positive market-expansion force, tappable through “viewing” P2P file sharers not as enemies, but rather as powerful entrepreneurial-talent allies. Such an ally relationship can be realized through creating a low-participation-cost environment involving effective sanctioning against copyright infringement liability of P2P file sharing of media files under circumstances where ancillary revenue is stimulated by the reward-based harnessing of the natural enthusiasms and marketing ingenuities of selected P2P affinity-group members to make offerings for sale of selected electronic-media, or electronic-media plus ancillary, commercial deliverables linked to the file-sharing transfers of media files.
As an illustration of practice of the invention, P2P file sharers (in a group) who have an affinity interest in a particular kind of music, also referred to herein as category-A subject matter information, are encouraged to become subscribers to a sanctioned (copyright-liability sanctioned, or freed) P2P file sharing community for the payment of (a) modest monthly fees, and (b) modest additional fees (or selectively in some instances, as with “older” media subject matters, no fees) associated with acquisitions (downloads) of particular media song files. Such song files are additionally referred to herein as rights-associated media, with respect to which copyright owners' rights are referred to as possessor-owned relationship rights.
Particular members of such a network affinity group are vetted, and selected effectively as “sales agents” to offer various purchasable goods and/or services (“commercial deliverables”, including electronic-media deliverables) made available through a controlled, authorized-access-only, centralized, catalogue, or pool, of such deliverables. These selected peer-group members, also referred to herein as sub-delivery hosts, are encouraged to innovate and propel their own styles of sales promotions which accompany, or are solely focused upon, as an illustration, distributable-media file sharing. A peer in such a group, selected to act as a sales representative, may thus, at his or her option, effectively link with offers for distribution of affinity-interest media files to other peers, offers to those peers to consider the purchases of other goods and services from such a catalogue. Such sales-representative peers may also be authorized/encouraged to offer special goods and services of their own choosing along with catalogue-based deliverables of others. For example, an authorized, sales-representative peer might have a special personal collection of affinity-interest memorabilia/collectables which might be attractive to other affinity-interest peers. Permitted to do so within the authorization granted to that authorized peer, he or she could profitably link offers for sale of articles from such a personal collection with offers for the sharing of direct affinity (licensed media song file) subject matter.
With this unique, invention-offered, peer-entrepreneurial approach to file sharing—this proposed new paradigm—implemented with a network affinity group, one will note that much of the basic characteristic of today's “free” file-sharing behavior is actually “imprinted” on the paradigm, without there also being imprinted a situation of rights violations, such as copyright rights violations.
Returning now to a highlighting of other features of the invention, any peer-promotion-resulting “catalogue-based sales hits”, which could include, simply, noticeable sales inquiries, as well, of course, as consummated sales, are appropriately tracked and credited to the offering peer. For each such offering peer, a “sales hit” credit account may be kept, with different levels of activities which become summarized in such an account leading to various different kinds of recognitions/awards (hit-redemption values) which act, of course, as incentives for further sales promotional activities. Recognitions/awards may either be delivered automatically to a “deserving/earning” peer, or may be appropriately requested by such a peer.
As will become apparent to those skilled in the art, there are many ways in which the basic practice proposed by the present invention, as just above outlined, can be implemented. That basic practice, as can be seen, involves visualizing the world of peer-to-peer file sharing not so much as the world alone (though it may be that) of exchange of particular affinity interest materials between peer group members, but more as an extensive bandwidth network of potential promoters of sales for a very wide range of goods and services (including electronic media), the promotions of sales for which lead to peer member awards and recognitions which in turn become incentives both for wider peer group participation, as well as for wider ancillary goods and services providers participation. In point of fact, implementation and practice of the present invention provides a clear opportunity for rights holders, for example, of copyrighted media material, and peer-to-peer file sharers, to see one another as important and cooperative allies in a very new form of extraordinarily widespread and highly active commerce.
Lying near the heart of the present invention is the concept that it is the quality of natural, personal enthusiasm and “energy” of file-sharing peers in a peer affinity group which becomes the harnessed driving force behind promoting the sales of ancillary and electronic-media goods and services in linkage with the basic sharing of affinity subject matter. This concept is to be distinguished from others wherein, for example, (a) ancillary commercial deliverables may be offered for sale to peers in a file-sharing group by virtue of being data-linked directly and specifically to particular shareable media files, or (b) network addresses of peers in a file sharing group are provided to owners/offerers of ancillary deliverables for “direct mail” solicitation. Neither of these approaches taps the important power and potential of individual peer promotion, peer enthusiasm, and peer entrepreneurship.
It should be noted at this point that various conventional, available and prior-art-based details employable in the implementation of this invention do not form any part of the present invention, and thus are only noted herein. For example: (a) P2P file sharing software; (b) the creation and management of centralized server-controlled catalogues of ancillary goods and services (deliverables); (c) transaction record-keeping files regarding both affinity and non-affinity subject matter; (d) tagging practices which latch onto and tag, for tracking and accounting purposes, the managing of P2P subscription memberships and “good-standing” membership fees; (e) the attaching of rights-holder-implemented “copyright-behavior” control filters (or the like) to media files to protect against improper (non-copyright sanctioned) transfers of media which are not to be free transfers; (f) the offering and fulfilling of hit redemption awards; and (g) other relevant things and matters, are readily available to and/or producible by those possessing general skill in the relevant art.
Among the many publicly available documents which bear upon these subject areas are the following: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0052885 A1 (use of embedded data with file sharing); U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0138576 A1 (Method and system for generating revenue in a P2P network); U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0076955 A1 (system and method for controlled copying and moving of content); U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0186844 A1 (user-friendly rights management systems and methods); U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0131044 A1 (multi-level P2P network structure for peer and object discovery); U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0024727 A1 (method and system of re-sharing files with modifications); U.S. Patent Application publication No. 2003/0078918 A1 (method, apparatus and system for file sharing between computers); U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0212710 A1 (system for tracking activity and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0191720 A1 (electronic tracking tag). The disclosure contents of these publications are hereby incorporated herein by reference for background purposes.
The above referred to, and other, important features of the present invention will become more fully apparent as the description of this invention now unfolds in relation to discussions about the several accompanying drawings which illustrate, in block/schematic forms, a number of different ways of visualizing and illustrating manners of practicing the invention.